Remember how to live

Life on autopilot, every day the same.
Drinking coffee, meetings, work,
watching YouTube in the evening.
Living in a flat I don't like,
with lovely people I'd never call friends.
Wanting to go outside, but having a pandemic as an excuse to wait.
Restrictions more powerful in my own head than enforced by law.
Imprisoned by choice, drowning negative thoughts
with mediocre content created to waste time.
I don't know how I spent the last two years.
It doesn't matter, I got a raise.
Maybe, just maybe, I forgot what it means to live.

But then, restrictions are loosened, the excuses fall away.
A wish, suppressed for many years, reemerging.
Making a first step towards an adventure I dreamed about indefinitely.
The only excuse left is the ever-present fear of change,
missing certainty before it ends. Because even the certainty of being miserable
is better than having no certainty at all.
And when the pain finally is strong enough to move
I do the thing I always wanted to do,
just to prove that I won't like it anyway.
Just to be able to say "At least I tried it",
and to go back to my self-pitying existence.
And maybe, just maybe, I will remember how to live.

And when I do it I don't know why I waited.
It's everything I wanted and more.
It doesn't feel special,
but the ordinary feels great once more.
Finding joy in small moments,
seeing the world in colour again.
Standing in the Baltic Sea, feeling the blistering cold
of the water swashing around my feet.
Eating a cinnamon roll while riding a bike through a rainy city,
savouring its taste for hours.
Visiting a board game gathering,
playing Settlers of Catan with strangers.
Eating Pizza with an unlikely friend.
Going for a walk with no goal in mind,
taking in the sights around me.
For a moment, I no longer see life as a multivariate problem to be optimised.
And maybe, just maybe, I'm remembering what it means to live.